This is the feedback thread for A Northern Village, available on the 1.14 and 1.12 add on servers, which is complete and ready to play. Over 1,100 12,000 downloads for 1.12 so far! Version 2 has been uploaded to the 1.14 add on server, with no gameplay changes.

Any comment or advice will be gratefully received.

Can you save a peaceful village from certain destruction at the hands of a rampaging monster?

Your forces will include fencers, cavalrymen and unusual allies.

This is a very short intermediate level campaign which should take just 1 to 2 hours to play. 5 Scenarios, all with small maps, but three of them are exceedingly brief. I have tried to provide unusual, interesting and varied tactical challenges, with different victory conditions in nearly every scenario.

Changelog:

Spoiler:

2.0.0: Updated to 1.14.1.1.3:

Changed image path of farmer girl graphic so that the unit will hopefully show up on all systems.

Made it necessary to defend the villagers in the first scenario and altered objectives to reflect this.

Altered objectives in scenario 2 to make victory conditions clearer.

Increased side 2 gold in scenario 3 on challenging difficulty to help keep Myndra alive. No combination of caution and aggression achieved this.

Replaced some impassable mountains with snowy hills to reduce a bottleneck in scenario 4.

Increased the player's starting gold in scenario 5 on normal and challenging.

Changed some facings so that units are looking in the right directions.

Added acknowledgement to Chief Chasso's help in the credits.

1.0.0: Initial upload.

Here is some background to how this campaign was created.

Spoiler:

My very first idea for a campaign was a year in the life of a northern village. First the village would be attacked by rats, then the rats would bring the plague, leading to walking corpses, then goblins would attack and so on. I didn't feel that I should attempt such a long and difficult project straight off, so I began by creating An Undead Incursion.

I then returned to my village idea, but found two problems. Firstly, despite having different enemies and victory conditions, maps that changed through the seasons and allies that came and went, it was just a bit boring defending the same village time and again. Secondly, and more importantly, it was almost impossible to balance as levelling too many units in the early scenarios made the later ones too easy, whilst losing a few troops close to levelling made them too difficult.

In the meantime, I had also had an idea for a campaign where the player controls animals and eventually decided to combine this with elements of my now-defunct plans, which produced A Beastly Tale.

I still had other scenarios that I hadn't used, however, and when a relative said she was interested in learning to make a game I decided to brush a couple off to use as a teaching aid. I noticed that fencers and cavalrymen don't get used very often and added an abridged version of Beowulf to the plot to fill it out a little and here we are.

If feedback suggests that this campaign should be extended, there are two options. I could include some orc or goblin attacks on the village between the first and second scenarios or add a battle or two set during Mal-Ravanal's invasion.

My original plan for the year in the life of the village was as follows:

Rats (used in A Beastly Tale)

Walking Corpses (used in A Beastly Tale)

Goblins

Outlaws

Wolves and goblin wolf riders (could be added to this campaign)

Trolls -a mage arrives as an ally (adapted into scenario 1 of this campaign)

Orcs (could be added to this campaign)

Loyalists, accusing the mage of being a necromancer

Undead, led by the mage, who turns out to really be a necromancer (adapted into scenario 2 of this campaign)

Different loyalists who don't believe the necromancer has left (survival scenario)

Undead again, but the village has loyalist allies this time (could be added to this campaign)

Drakes and dwarves who fight each other as well as the villagers (adapted for A Beastly Tale)

Final Undead battle

Orcs, Trolls, Saurians, Outlaws, but the village has elf allies

As you can see, there are still a few ideas I haven't used yet, but they may have to wait a while as my next plan is for an orc campaign.

Last edited by gloccusv on September 28th, 2018, 2:26 am, edited 2 times in total.

Thank you, ZIM. The short answer to why the campaign is not working is that it was written for 1.12, not 1.13. It shouldn't even be on the 1.13 server!

However, when I load the start of scenario save you provided, I don't get the same error as you. Tanner and Florin are there and I can even complete the scenario, although for some reason Lagwif doesn't appear due to his "type" attribute being missing.

I notice that you seem to be using Dugi's Move Units Between Campaigns mod and this or any other mod you are running might be affecting the game in some way I can not predict. The only thing I can suggest is to disable all mods (especially any "hardcore" mods if you have them) and try again to see whether it makes a difference. If that doesn't work, then I am afraid that I don't understand the changes between 1.12 and 1.13 well enough to be able to guess at what the problem is or how to fix it. In fact, since you're running the development version, you probably know more about it than I do.

I'm really sorry I couldn't fix the issue. If anyone with experience of 1.13 can shed any light on what is going on, then please let me know. Otherwise, I'm just not proficient enough to maintain a campaign for the development branch. I will update it to the next stable version, whenever that is released, but until then I'll be sticking with 1.12.

The fact is,I don't know that Bfw 1.13.0 and later is development version...
When I want to download the newest version of Bfw,I ask help from other person.He downloaded me Bfw 1.13.1 .
Fortunately,I still have Bfw 1.12.2...
Anyway,I don't have any mods installed in my Bfw.
And,I manage to won the first scenario at turn 1.It is intended to be that easy?

The first scenario is intended to be an easy introduction to the campaign, but I didn't think it was possible to win on turn 1. Would you mind uploading your replay so that I can see how you managed it?

Spoiler:

If everything is working as intended, then first you need to defeat the Troll, Grudd and then his mother, the Troll Shaman. With only a Duellist and Red Mage, it should take at least two attacks to kill each one, so the earliest possible finish should be turn 2. Therefore, if you finished on turn 1, then I must have made a mistake somewhere.

Thank you for playing and I hope you enjoy the rest of the campaign. It does get a bit harder later on, but not a lot harder. Frankly, if I can beat it, it can't be too difficult!

If I remember correctly,I hit Grudd with the red Mage with all of the fireballs and it die.Then,when I fight the troll Shaman with the duelist,he got an arcane sword and I manage to finish her with that.

Hello gloccusv,
Just wanted to say I really enjoyed your campaign. It was short and sweet which was somewhat refreshing. Also, I really liked your tiny maps. I played on 1.12.5, on easy level. I just wanted to post some general data of my play-through. I don't know if it helps or not. I also found a few bugs.

Comments: I played this scernario really aggresive. I moved Tanner across the ford and the Orc Ruler came out and attacked. The next turn I surrounded and kill him on Turn 2. Then just mopped up the rest of the orcs. The elves in the forest held their own.

Comment: I killed the drakes with no problem, but couldn't continue from there (see below bug).Bug report: When I move one of my units to 7,9 nothing happens. You cannot get past the impassable mountains to get to the Nacromancer. Unless I missed something...

Thank you for playing, and even more so for taking the time to leave a message. I'm glad you liked it and your comments are extremely helpful. I intended the campaign to be very quick and quite easy, but I have to admit that when testing I did lose a couple of times, even on the easiest setting, which probably says more about my (lack of) skill as a player than the level of difficulty.

I have just updated BfW to 1.12.5 and played through again on easy and the farmer's wife does show up on my computer using the existing image path, so there is something strange going on. However, I shall upload a new version with the image path fixed so that she will hopefully appear for everyone. Thank you very much for spotting this and working out the fix.

Regarding scenario 4, I can't reproduce your bug on my system. If you still have a save file (preferably from after you move a unit to 7,9), could you upload it here so that I can see the problem? Also, could you tell me the operating system on your computer, just in case that is making a difference.

Spoiler:

When you move to 7,9, the shroud is supposed to lift, revealing the necromancer, who then begins recruiting. There is a tunnel between the throne room and a village in the northern half of the map through which your troops should be able to pass.

gloccusv, thanks for the reply. Regarding the scenario 4 bug, it was a false report. It actually works fine, I just misunderstood what I had to do. Now I will play through again on challenging and hope to post more feedback. Thanks again.

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?: Challenging, 1.12.5
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10): 2
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?: Very clear.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?: Very clear. The part about them mistaking the troll shaman as the father was funny. I found it a bit odd that Tanner just happens to find an elvish blade in the cave, but it's a nice power up (I wouldn't change it though, because you definitely need it).
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?: On first turn, I moved both Tanner and Florin to the keep to try and lure the troll off the village, but realized he wasn't going to move, so I essentially wasted my turn.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10): 6
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?: Maybe have the troll go after Groat and his ma and pa? So you have to protect them with zoc. But that would sure make it difficult.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?: No. But I almost lost on turn 5 because of bad luck, but Florin was able to defeat the troll shaman on defensive melee counter strikes (which was a bit of good luck, so it balanced out).

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?: Challenging, 1.12.5
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10): 6
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?: Not real clear. The first time I played this scenario, I was not sure what to do. It says to "distract" the enemy leader, but how do you do that? Since I already played, I knew what to do (just hit the enemy leader). Perhaps rephrasing objective to "strike a blow to Mysterious Necromancer to distract him" or something like that.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?: Very clear.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?: This is an interesting scenario. The trick is to know what your objective is. Since I knew I just had to hit the enemy leader, I figured Tanner is the best to do it with his arcane damage and skirmisher. I did not recruit, just went straight at the necro with Tanner the first turn. Put groat, florin, and lagwif in villages. Then next two turns, used them to create a path for Tanner. Plus by not recruiting, I'm building up as much gold as possible for later scenarios.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10): 7
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?: You only start the scenario with 20g (on challenging). I was going to say maybe start with more gold, but then that would make it too easy to farm xp. I like you have to rush the enemy leader. I don't see how there is any other way to win this scenario because by turn 3 you are overwhelmed by skeletons.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?: No. But I thought I was going to lose. I played too carelessly and left Florin wide open and in danger, but was lucky she wasn't killed.

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?: Challenging, 1.12.5
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10): 6.5
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?: Very clear.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?: Very clear. I liked Florin and Lagwif dialog between the two. Good character contrast.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?: I only started the scenario with 32g. I thought it was going to be very difficult since the starting orc leader has 200g. I figured the best strategy is to recruit two fencers (getting the most out of my 32g), and play aggressive going after the orc leader. I put my units in striking position on turn one. Then on turn two attacked focusing on the orc leader. Strike first with Tanner. I new that the ghoul is going to betray me later, so I figured I'd suicide him by getting as may orcs poisoned as possible and also absorbing the enemy's focus(that's how I use ghouls anyway). I was unable to save Myndra, so no bonus power ups.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10): 8
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?: Maybe make Myndra less aggressive? I'm not sure. I thought if she died, I wouldn't get a gold bonus, but you get that either way, you just don't get power ups for Tanner, which I think is okay. It seems to me that gold is very important in this campaign.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?: No.

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?: Challenging, 1.12.5
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10): 7
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?: The first part is clear (defeat Drake leader). At first I didn't know you had to teleport from keep to village on opposite side of impassable mountains.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?: Very clear. The Drake leader had a good line about the humans.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?: Your recruit list is not the greatest for the type of terrain you have to traverse. Luckily, there is a tunnel to get to the drake keep. I was able to get Florin and Cavalryman to the drake keep through the tunnel, and sent Lagwif, Tanner and 2 recalled quick fencers north to the drake keep. I had no casualties from the drakes. After that, I had to face the necro and skeletons. This is the part I lost all my units including groat. However, I was playing sloppy and over aggressive, exposing my units to skeletons at night. But I was able to level the three heroes (tanner, florin, and lagwif) and just bulldozed my way to the necro. The necro and the lich were no match for lvl 3 tanner and his arcane blade. The silver mage and pathfinder also helped.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10): 6.5
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?: Maybe make the terrain a little more favorable to loyalist units in certain areas, especially around the necromancer's keep. Maybe add a few flat road terrains? It was a bit of a bottleneck around the village my troops were teleporting to.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?: No.

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?: Challenging, 1.12.5
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10): 8.5 (but I was pretty unlucky)
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?: Very clear.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?: Very clear. It was a good conclusion.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?: The starting gold is 20g. For me, this was the biggest challenge. You can basically only recruit 1 cavalryman on first turn and 1 peasant the second turn. By then, the fire dragon is all over you. If you had a little bit more starting gold (maybe 34g) so you can at least recruit 2 cavalryman on first turn.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10): 4 (I think this was my least favorite scenario of the campaign)
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?: Maybe give the player more starting gold.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?: Yes. I tried being too aggressive with the fire dragon and I was no match for him. You need to bait the fire dragon with a peasant or cav and hope that he takes the bait. The dragon has huge range and there is no where to hide on the map. So if he decides to attack Tanner, it's tough to win. You need a bit of luck to beat this scenario. It took me about 5 or 6 restarts. I think an extra 14g at start (34g total) would make a huge difference.

Thank you very much for such useful and extensive feedback. It's exactly what I need to improve the next version of the campaign.

Spoiler:

Scenario 1
I found it a bit odd that Tanner just happens to find an elvish blade in the cave, but it's a nice power up (I wouldn't change it though, because you definitely need it).

If my vague ideas for a campaign set in the early years of Wesnoth ever turn into something playable, I might explain how the sword and armour ended up in the cave.

Maybe have the troll go after Groat and his ma and pa? So you have to protect them with zoc. But that would sure make it difficult.

I will test that and see how it works out. Since you have the first turn it should be possible.

Scenario 2
The first time I played this scenario, I was not sure what to do. It says to "distract" the enemy leader, but how do you do that? Since I already played, I knew what to do (just hit the enemy leader). Perhaps rephrasing objective to "strike a blow to Mysterious Necromancer to distract him" or something like that.

This was one of the things I was worried about. I'll change the objectives.

Since I knew I just had to hit the enemy leader, I figured Tanner is the best to do it with his arcane damage and skirmisher. I did not recruit, just went straight at the necro with Tanner the first turn. Put groat, florin, and lagwif in villages. Then next two turns, used them to create a path for Tanner. Plus by not recruiting, I'm building up as much gold as possible for later scenarios.

When I designed the scenario, that was exactly the strategy that I hoped would work best.

I like you have to rush the enemy leader. I don't see how there is any other way to win this scenario because by turn 3 you are overwhelmed by skeletons.

I wanted a scenario to show off the advantage of a skirmishing unit able to get behind enemy lines to attack the necromancer.

Scenario 3
Maybe make Myndra less aggressive? I'm not sure. I thought if she died, I wouldn't get a gold bonus, but you get that either way, you just don't get power ups for Tanner, which I think is okay. It seems to me that gold is very important in this campaign.

I'll see whether tweaking the elf ai helps here. I'll look at the objectives to see whether I can make it clearer that the bonus for Myndra surviving is not gold. Gold is certainly very important on Challenging, but there is a bit more to play with on the easier difficulties.

Scenario 4
The first part is clear (defeat Drake leader). At first I didn't know you had to teleport from keep to village on opposite side of impassable mountains.

I will add some text to make this clearer.

Your recruit list is not the greatest for the type of terrain you have to traverse. Luckily, there is a tunnel to get to the drake keep. Maybe make the terrain a little more favorable to loyalist units in certain areas, especially around the necromancer's keep. Maybe add a few flat road terrains? It was a bit of a bottleneck around the village my troops were teleporting to.

I'll take another look at it. Fencers have an easier time of it than cavalry, but it's true that you can get bottlenecked easily here.

Scenario 5
The starting gold is 20g. For me, this was the biggest challenge. You can basically only recruit 1 cavalryman on first turn and 1 peasant the second turn. By then, the fire dragon is all over you. If you had a little bit more starting gold (maybe 34g) so you can at least recruit 2 cavalryman on first turn.

I have just realized that in all my playtests, I always had at least one level 2 unit waiting for recall. If Groat is still alive, he is a free recall which also helps.

The dragon has huge range and there is no where to hide on the map. So if he decides to attack Tanner, it's tough to win. You need a bit of luck to beat this scenario. It took me about 5 or 6 restarts. I think an extra 14g at start (34g total) would make a huge difference.

I'll increase the gold as you suggest.

I want to test a few things before uploading the new version, but I hope to have it done within a week. Thanks again for your praise and support. I'm about four scenarios into Rally for Roanic at the moment and really enjoying it so I'll let you know how it goes when I finish.

Joyful, yet somewhat easy campaign. Played highest difficulty, but don't think it makes much of a difference (is it even worth it having 3 different difficulties to choose from, when they are so similar in difficulty?). Scenario 2 could use reduced edge spawns. They add little (but animation time in the end) and the scenario becomes impossible easily if by any chance the route to the necromancer is closed even for skirmishers. Scenario 4, levelled Lagwif and a cav to L2 and Tanner to L3. He is so overpowered at that point, that he defeated enemy leader twice almost on his own. Can easily go wrong if you open the tunnel at the wrong time of day, though. The drakes are easy to handle when they are limited to their castle rapidly. Scenario 5 was inevitably easy (with 2 recruited cavs). Intro dialog would look better with full size portraits shown directly above the text, maybe one left one right, not with a floating half portrait.

Liked the campaign - the limited scope (both in length and in map size) meant it became less of a slugfest than most campaigns.

That said, scenario 4 did turn into a slugfest, where I tried to attrite the skeletons. I even tried to put a unit on the skeleton spawning hex to the northwest, but then the skeletons just spawned from another hex

In the end, I won when I put a unit (more or less by mistake) where the necromant could reach it, and I could surround first the necromant and then the lich. I had quite the collection of duellants at the time.

I found the cavalry to be somewhat worthless in this campaign - I could do with the starting units for most scenarios, and in scenario 4 I recruited oodles of fencers.

Scenario 2 was a bit of a head-scratcher and took about 3 or 4 tries. If you reach turn 4 you're probably overwhelmed by undead and toast.

Spoiler:

Pretty much the only way I beat it was to move half way forwards, then hope that Tanner and Florin could take out two skeletons so that Groat can score a hit on the Necromancer.

Scenario 3. I don't mind ally leaders summoning troops as they see fit, but if the goal is for them to survive, they should always be set to maximum caution - which generally means not engaging the enemy unless absolutely necessary. No ifs, no buts. If the player can't control the ally, the ally should at least avoid any suicidal moves. I was playing on Easy and despite leaping into the fray, the NPC survived. On a harder level she might easily have been killed regardless of what the player does.

Scenario 4. I lost both Lagwif and Groat in this one. Admittedly I was tired and probably a little too aggressive. I've got a feeling that the teleportation is going to cause you a lot of bugs. I'd just change it to a 2x2 tunnel behind the throne.

Spoiler:

The Abomination turned one me, which was fair as I was warned. However, the Necromancer dying and becoming a Lich was a tomato surprise. I'd pretty much sacrificed everyone to let Tanner kill the Necromancer and wasn't overly enthralled to have him surrounded by undead with a new end of level boss. I'm not sure that the player can do anything other than be aggressive here - the free undead keep pouring in from the left and right mountains make a defensive game untenable. Maybe when the Necromancer is replaced by a Lich his army could die.

Scenario 5. The end is a bit of a downer.

Spoiler:

Florin dies off camera, and Tanner dies even if you defeat the dragon. Is this intentional or is there a secret ending if you keep Lagwif / Groat alive?